Ideally, committing a crime is
followed by expiation, which is not the same as punishment because expiation is
the mental or physical pain caused by punishment, in other words, the
consequence of punishment on the offender. As for punishment, there are two
types, one of which is external punishment, that is, some kind of external
force, e.g. a state, the Church, a god, the head of family, a domina escort, etc.
imposes punishment on the sinner. A special kind of punishment is the one that
occurs through various sexual practices, either because the subject likes to
punish or because s/he likes to be punished, and this is explicitly related to
sexuality, although it should be noted that in extreme cases, sexuality can
even be pushed into background in BDSM sessions. The other type of punishment
is the remorse of the sinner or inner pain as a consequence of committed sin,
which is a distressing, automatic punishment, and is often much more painful
than external punishment. Ideally, both elements are included in a punishment,
but of course this is rarely the case. Internal punishment, remorse can
dominate the extent of external punishment, when the sinner suffers more from
inner torments than from the physical punishment of, say, imprisonment, and
vice versa. This internal punishment or expiation may also manifest itself in
strange sexual practices, namely in sexual masochism, when the sex purchaser of
high societal position, most likely to be a male[1],
has himself humiliated by a sex worker due to his remorse because he is likely
to do so to the subordinates in the world of work. But, as I have said,
punishment can be imposed, at the highest level, by the state in case of
breaching norms, whereas in the past, the church also had the power to impose
punishment if we only think of the terrible torture of the dreaded Inquisition.
In legal context, the punishment is
what assigned to a defendant found guilty by a court, or fixed by law for a
particular offence, so it has formal procedure. Punishment can be non-formal as
well, which always depends on some informal authority, the best example of
which is the disciplinary punishment in a family or school, ostracism within a
group or the sadomachoistic séances in the world of perverted sex. According to
this division of punishment, there can be physical and psychological, that is,
physical and mental pain as punishment. In sadistic-masochistic sexual
practices, there are a number of different forms of physical or corporal
punishment, which represent various methods of inflicting physical pain. The
most typical way to achieve pain and pleasure simultaneously[2]
is to hold breath during sexual pleasure, which can easily lead to death by
asphyxiation, as it is often made public by the press.[3]
The act of strangulation is a frequent sexual side-activity, especially by men
who dominate their partner, which is often included in porn content and largely
influences the sexual habits of young porn users. Common sadomasochistic habits
fall into two main categories[4]:
mild and severe painful sexual practices. Mild include psychological distress,
humiliation, filthy language, enjoying and taking the advantage of the
partner’s defencelessness, such as bondage, bedside clamping, blindfolding, and
the use of mild sexual perversions, such as bites, slight whipping or spanking,
the application of various tweezers and electrodes and, finally, the
application of hot wax pain (dripping of wax). Extreme sadomasochistic sexual
practices can lead to intense pain, such as trampling on testicles and rectal
penetration with oversized dildo, in the latter of which a male is the
receiver, reaching intense physical and psychological pains.
From a religious point of view,
punishment has to be divided into two subtypes: the worldly and the afterlife
punishment, that is, a sinner has to deal with not only worldly consequences,
but his or her sins are also recorded in the other world where they must do
penance for their wrongdoings. Worldly punishment is determined by the legal
system of a given society depending on how serious the crime is, whereas the
afterlife punishment for Christians falls into two categories, according to the
place of penitence. One of them is Hell, where punishment is eternal suffering with
various torments, and the another is Purgatory, where the degree of suffering
is very similar to that of Hell, but it is not eternal, that is, the length of
the punishment depends on the individual's amount of guilt committed in his or
her lifetime, therefore, the more sinful one is within a certain limit, after
that s/he would go to Hell, the longer s/he would have to suffer the purifying
fire, after which s/he would be purged and admitted to a world without
suffering, Heaven. The name itself means purification from the Latin 'purificatio'.